In particular for LED rear luminaires in the automotive field and other LED luminaires with often strictly prescribed brightness requirements, such as, in particular, signaling LED luminaires, a coding of the LED circuit arrangement with regard to its properties is useful in order to set a suitable driving of the LED circuit arrangement.
By way of example, electronic circuit arrangements of the generic type are manufactured in the form of LED modules which are assigned to different groups depending on the requirement with regard to the brightness. The brightness groups result from manufacturing tolerances during the production of the LED components. In order nevertheless to keep the LED modules of the different brightness groups within the legal standards of a specific application, it is often necessary to operate the LED modules from the different groups with different currents.
In the case of LED luminaires, for example, the drive circuit and the LED circuit arrangement are usually arranged on different carriers (e.g. rigid and/or flexible printed circuit boards) and generally produced by different manufacturers. In final assembly, these two components have to be brought together and electrically connected.
The drive signal (for example operating current) required for the electronic circuit arrangement respectively used is conventionally set manually, for example by means of pluggable jumpers on the drive circuit. In order to correspondingly identify the electronic circuit arrangement, for example in the case of LED modules, for this purpose markings are provided as early as during or directly after their production, in order that later, during final assembly, it is possible to comprehend the LED brightness group with which the module is equipped and which operating current is necessary in order to operate the LED module for example within specific brightness standard limits.
When setting the operating parameters by means of pluggable jumpers, this is preferably effected on the drive circuit. This is associated with additional outlay on account of a separate work step that is necessary. Moreover, this constitutes a fault source because jumper connections can become detached on account of permanent vibrations, as occur for example in a motor vehicle.
An alternative known possibility for setting the matching drive signal, which possibility is, however, technically complicated and therefore cost-intensive, is the use of programmable modules, such as e.g. microcontrollers.